The Cuban Censusan afrodescendiente undercount

Cuba's census, carried out about every 10 years, bases its
racial identification on self identification. Since being black in Cuba
carries a social stigma to this day and since anyone with a drop of white
blood can consider themselves white, as is common in Latin America, people
self identify as white.

The 2012 census results are expected in June 2013.

The 2002 Cuban census was widely use to counter previous
estimates of the percentages of afrodescendientes, descendants of Africans. Previous
figures from outside Cuba and even from some Cuban official bodies had
descendants of Africans at about 60% while the 2002 Census put the white population at 65%.
However, this was not much of a change from the previous official census
of 1980-1981, which had whites at 70% and which was widely discounted.

Some Cuban government bodies put the percentage of Blacks
in Cuba at around 60% after the 1980 census, but not after the 2002 census
(that we have been able to determine). There have been constant efforts at
"blanqueamiento" that go back to the 19th century but have been more
pronounced in recent years after the rise of tourism, an enterprise
dominated by ibero-spanish Cubans.

The image presented in Miami is quite different, where whites
complain about how black Cuba has become since "all the whites left
for Miami."

The reliance on
people's self-identification as white, black, or mulatto is a traditional
feature of the census. Many people opt to be white. Such self
identification is now shunned by professional demographers around the
planet as it is notoriously unreliable.
Another factor may have been deliberate attempts to undercount blacks,
reported for both the 1980 and the 2002 census. These reports are of
course controversial.

Cuba is no different than many other Latin
American countries, where the same racial dynamics and undercounts are at play.

The census figures have an impact in Cuban society as they are used
to determine the percentages that should hold sway in various institutions
such as schools, etc., in unofficial quotas. Administrators can say, see
we have blacks represented at their percentage in the population, we are not
discriminating against them.

The CIA Fact Book
pre-2002 census entry, as noted at the time in AfroCubaWeb: "Ethnic groups: mulatto 51%, white 37%, black 11%, Chinese
1%" [51+11=62] This entry is no longer available as the CIA now
accepts the official 2002 Census:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Cuba
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Cuba, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.The 2002 census figures supplied by the regime claim that 65% of Cubans were
white.

The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami says 68% are black.The Minority Rights Group International says that "An objective assessment of the situation of Afro-Cubans remains problematic due to scant records and a paucity of systematic studies both pre- and post-revolution. Estimates of the percentage of people of African descent in the Cuban population vary enormously, ranging from 33.9 per cent to 62 per cent". It uses the number for 51% for mulattoes.

According to the 2002 census, Cuba's population was 11,177,743.

www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/afrolatin/part4/index.html
Cuba's official statistics offer little help on the race issue. The 2002
census, which asked Cubans whether they were white, black or mestizo/mulatto,
showed 11 percent of the island's 11.2 million people described themselves as
black. The real figure is more like 62 percent, according to the Institute for
Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.

And the published Census figures provide no way at all to compare blacks and
whites in categories like salary or educational levels. Ramón Colás, who left
Cuba in 2001 and now runs an Afro-Cuba race-relations project in Mississippi,
said he once carried out his own telling survey: Five out of every 100 private
vehicles he counted in Havana were driven by a Cuban of color.

The disparity between the census' 11 percent and UM's 62 percent also
reflects the complicated racial categories in a country where if you look white
you are considered white, no matter the genes.

World
Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Cuba : Afro-Cubans, 2008,
UNHCR
Since 1989 and the so-called 'special period in peacetime', statistics and
analysis concerning social trends in Cuba have been almost unavailable. This
compounds a more long-standing problem of information concerning race relations
and minorities in the island. An objective assessment of the situation of
Afro-Cubans remains problematic due to scant records and a paucity of systematic
studies both pre- and post-revolution.

Estimates of the percentage of people of African descent in the Cuban
population vary enormously, ranging from 33.9 per cent to 62 per cent. This is
partly a question of self-perception, as census figures are based on how Cubans
define themselves.

As in many Latin American and Caribbean countries, there is also a large
'mulatto' or ethnically mixed population, and colour, class and social status
are closely interlinked. Few Cubans are either 'pure' white or black.
Definitions of 'colour' are as much the result of social criteria as of somatic
classification. Afro-Cubans are most prevalent in the eastern part of the island
and in districts of Havana.

Taking all of this into consideration, the fact that there has been a
significant exodus of 'white' Cubans from the island means that Afro-Cubans have
now come to represent a larger proportion of the overall population and are now
thought to constitute closer to 70 per cent of the total.

Reflections On Race & The Status Of People Of African Descent In Revolutionary Cuba,
Eugene Godfried, 11/2000
Some official documents consider a "mulatto" as being
"white". Other documents define Chinese as "white" and yet
on other occasions as "black." One can find still other sources, such
as the Ministry of External Affairs, that include black and mulattos on the same
side of the list resulting in a 63% figure for the segment of African descent,
an estimate one also finds in American sources, both governmental and scholarly.

Percentages that are sometimes officially applied, such as whites 70%, blacks
19 %, mulattos 11%, are clearly inadequate. These likely come from the 1980-1981
census, where people were asked to identify themselves along ethnic lines, and
are disregarded by most Cuba scholars. Such percentages necessarily lead to
partial policies followed by inequality in proportional social relations as a
result. Consequently, leading figures directing major policy-making bodies need
to accommodate themselves on these patterns of visions and in order to be
inspired to have a critical and self-critical attitude when addressing themes
regarding the position, participation, and mobility of the people of African
descent in the Cuban society.

From http://popindex.princeton.edu/browse/v53/n1/s.html
53:10853 Cuba. Comite Estatal
de Estadisticas (Havana, Cuba). Census of population and housing of
1981: methodological volume, Vol. 17. [Censo de poblacion y viviendas de
1981: tomo metodologico, Volumen XVII.] Jul 1984. [206] pp. Havana, Cuba. In
Spa.
This volume describes the methodology used in the 1981 census of Cuba.
Information is also provided on scheduled publications of census results and
costs. Comparisons are made with other Cuban censuses.Location: University of Texas at Austin, Population Research Center. Source:
APLIC Census Network List, No. 68, Dec 1986.

For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun 3/24/2013 International
Herald Tribune: by
Roberto Zurbano - "Raúl Castro has announced that he will step down from the
presidency in 2018. It is my hope that by then, the antiracist movement in Cuba
will have grown, both legally and logistically, so that it might bring about
solutions that have for so long been promised, and awaited, by black Cubans. An
important first step would be to finally get an accurate official count of
Afro-Cubans. The black population in Cuba is far larger than the spurious
numbers of the most recent censuses. The number of blacks on the street
undermines, in the most obvious way, the numerical fraud that puts us at less
than one-fifth of the population. Many people forget that in Cuba, a drop of
white blood can — if only on paper — make a mestizo, or white person, out of
someone who in social reality falls into neither of those categories. Here, the
nuances governing skin color are a tragicomedy that hides longstanding racial
conflicts."

Call to Count Gays
in Cuba Census 9/2/2012 Havana Times: "How many homosexuals are there in
Cuba? How many same-sex couples are living together? How many transsexuals does
the island have? And how many bisexual and lesbian households exist in Cuba?
Answers to these kinds of questions are being sought by Cuban journalist and
blogger Francisco Rodriguez*, a well-known government sympathizer and gay
activist on the island."

Color Cubano by Elíades Acosta Matos 5/21/2009 Progreso Weekly: "Acosta was
chief of the Department of Culture of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of Cuba." A rank apology for the status quo that repeats a fundamental lie
in the ibero spanish canon: "Nationwide, 65.2 percent of the population is
white, but the number of mestizos increased by 4 points since the previous
census." [Acosta, it is more like 65% afrodescendiente!]

Cuban Color 2/12/2009 Progreso Weekly: By Elíades Acosta Matos, former head
of the Committee on Culture of the Cuban Communist Party’s Central Committee,
unfortunately repeats the falsehoods of the last census - "Nationwide, 65.2
percent of the population is white, but the number of mestizos increased by 4
points since the previous census."

‘Obama Effect’ Highlights Racism in Cuba 12/15/2008 New America Media:
"Cuban authorities offered statistical analysis to bolster their view, which
revealed the lengths to which Havana was prepared to deceive others even as it
deceived itself. Of Cuba’s population of 11.2 million people in 2002, officials
declared, 65 percent were white, 10 percent were black, and 25 percent were
mulatto. This racial breakdown matched exactly the breakdown of members of
Cuba’s parliament: 65 percent white and 35 percent people of color. The
implication was as obvious as it was ridiculous: Cuba had achieved “perfect”
racial representation between the people and their representatives. Europeans
scoffed at such claims. In fact, most independent census reports of the Cuban
nation puts the number of “whites” at anywhere from 20 to 35 percent; everyone
else is black or mulatto."

Cubans Jittery About Providing Census Information 9/6/2002 Black World
Today: "An intense campaign by Cuba's socialist government is aimed at calming
fears that the new Census on Population and Housing, which begins to be carried
out on Saturday, could uncover irregularities like black market purchases or
illegal housing arrangements. Every day, the government-controlled radio and TV
stations loudly insist on the benefits of knowing exactly ''how many we are''
and the need to assess the conditions of housing as well as shortcomings in the
areas of housing and social security in this Caribbean island nation."

Cuba: Census To Measure Two Decades Of Changes 8/27/2002 Black World Today:
"''Besides evaluating how many college graduates we have, the census will enable
us to find out how many of them are working in jobs related to their studies,
and how many people work, are looking for a job, or have more than one source of
employment,'' he added. The census will also provide more specific data on the
aging of Cuba's population of 11 million, 14 percent of whom are over 60. In
addition, it should shed light on internal migration flows, the number of
couples living together without being married or separated without getting
divorced, the increasing number of female heads of households, and the makeup of
the population in terms of skin colour."